Engineering for Teenagers

The tweak is the thing. Teenage Engineering, makers of the extremely seductive OP-1, which takes the aesthetics of Casio’s VL-1 from 1979 and the likes of Roland’s TB-303 and infuses it with modern electronics to make a compact, pricey and highly desirable piece of music making kit (as heard on compilations like Rumble When Bumble). TE also make the Oplab, a takeaway tray of sonic electronics to facilitate even more esoteric sonic extremes. This is the synthesis (if you’ll pardon the use of the word) of modern Ive-aesthetics with retro design and the wire’n’solder aesthetic of the circuit bending scene.